So I was reading. Because I didn't want to go down this.
One hundred twenty one pages he says everything. About like the housing struggle.
Or the. Addiction to work in the ninety's when people were getting
displaced in the dark. And it was basically street level or the
reason we're getting together not so many was getting
a. Little demonstration was. Very
grassroots were. Already yours.
Is. Of the San Francisco Community Trust which is
preserving. Buildings and really interest I knew we. Had
a success. Building in Chinatown. Was
going to be torn down for gentrification. General admission process of that he
doesn't really like to prefer. Has
a vision of this place me because that's the end result objectification and some of
the. Beginning of the book there is
a bit of. You know the housing housing
problem is happening because the system isn't working it's happening because the
system is working because this was
a system you know designed to put. And.
You know.
And need. To hear you know Mr Trump
thank. One of the great architects of the civil rights movement
Elegy Baker observed that movements are built mostly on the hard work of the people
behind the scenes those who prepare the Flyers make phone calls make sure that food
is there secure spaces for people to come together and find
a common cause So today I'm really privileged to be the person who gets to come in
here and talk and so with that I want to thank all of the organizers all the
leaders that have made this day happen but also especially Alina goot who was
responsible. For. So. When we
organize for our neighborhoods when we organize for our homes when you do it year
after year a company is very very discouraging it fills like
a sissified rock sometimes because you win that you win that campaign you stop that
eviction than four years later that landlords back just like Freddy Krueger right
say I'm going to come back Jason from Friday the thirteenth then I'm back and I'm
going to take it this time right I'm going to take I'm going to take everything
that I didn't take the last time and make an psychically it can be very damaging
but what I want to start off with is the idea that every single last campaign that
the Washington State tenants union takes on has an aspect that win or lose
you've already won you've already won by stepping up and I don't mean that in
a you know you know just pat on the back it's OK it's good that you it's good that
you tried it's always good that you try but I mean that you're telling
a story over the past forty plus years in the United States
we've had this thing called neo liberalism we've had this economic system this
version of an echo of capitalism it's not anything it's like capitalism with the
happy made mass taken off right but had this this version of capitalism is very
distinctly different from the strategy that. Came before it told
a story that there are expendable human beings right neo
liberalism. The system that we live in now tells
a story that some people in our cities some people in our neighborhoods are
expendable and it has
a project of turning out all that animosity that was going upwards that was going
towards powerful people making bad decisions that were hurting other people that
were starting wars and then turning it towards the homeless person right so in the
sixty's the seventy's we had all these wonderful movements I mean they had their
problems certainly they had their contradictions sometimes they were they were too
ideological sometimes they weren't ideological enough but they were
a human being standing up and say we are human beings we are proud human beings My
neighbor means something to me my neighbor is also
a human being and when you as you saw. As you as one of the most beautiful moments
that was so short lived that I talked about of my last book when the Black Panther
Party the Young Lords and the Appalachian poor white young patriot party came
together and said we can work together right we could reach across the color line
and say can we work together and there has been
a forty five years of dismantling that story right of making us
blame one another and this system counts on the silence of
people it counts on the Silence A white people that says you know what you probably
deserved to be killed or assaulted by the police it counts on the silence of people
who live in private housing to be. To stand aside when public housing is demolished
or this ridiculous step forward thing which is the step forward to oblivion plan as
far as I'm concerned.
Thank you it counts on those of us. Who are
born in this country which used to be Indian land to look at people who are coming
now and saying you're expendable we should kick you out even if you are fourteen so
what you are doing every every single last one of your campaigns say you are
building a new common sense
a brand new humanism and it could go in many different ways I don't have
a crystal ball right I don't know what type of system we're going to end up with in
ten years we don't even know if we're going to have an Earth in twenty. But every
single picket line that you walk together and have every single action even things
that seem exist in significant like petition drives tells
a new story about what we all mean to one another it puts put it
puts dignity in the word fight and it makes terms like rainbow coalitions seem not
so naive anymore right that we can actually get it together and turn things around
in this country and we might not be able to but that's the type of movement that I
want to be
a part of in till we view the one or we've lost so I'm dedicating this talk to the
memory of my good friend Ted Gullickson Ted who was the director of the San
Francisco tenants union for many decades and he died last Tuesday. And I have
a particular memory of Ted that is relevant to what I want to share with you today
I first met him in one nine hundred ninety one one thousand nine hundred two on
a street corner in San Francisco's Mission District I was in my early twenty's then
and wanted to unload all of my radical ideas on this veteran of of the housing
struggle as if he had never heard them before right as if they had just come
because I had read. Karl Marx our I had read and our kids the more I was starting
to learn about feminism from my sisters in the struggle and of course I had
wonderful ideas and he very patiently looked at me probably shook his head and said
if you ever expect to win anything never forget that all politics start on the
street corner I hung out with him on the street corner watching him as he held down
conversations about tenants rights with anyone grandmothers teenagers drunks
yuppies and even the odd landlord he earned the right to agitate people to ask them
to do something that they weren't planning on doing by listening so as we fluctuate
between really big ideas and full philosophical ideas of what we are and concrete
ideas about what we can do in the here and now I want you to know that all of the
alternatives all of our futures are basic exactly what we're doing they start in
laundromats the start with the conversations that you have as leaders in organizers
on street corners I think door knocking should be a sacrament knocking on
a stranger's door and saying Will you join us should. Should should be
a second is one of those honored things that anybody could do and we should also
know that when you step out and you fight for housing and you fight for land you're
part of such
a long tradition. One of the one of the hidden aspects of the civil rights movement
was Martin Luther King's housing campaigns the desegregation campaigns and the
movements of inspired around anti-Red redlining certainly the struggle for lead
this country goes back to the first Congress and congratulations to the Seattle
City Council for getting rid of Columbus Day. And we see.
If we see new expressions expressions that we see the Idle No More movement and we
saw the very best some of the very best people I think they're bad people but some
of the smartest most savvy people from the Occupy movement actually turn their
energies towards defending neighborhoods right taking that energy taking that one
of those wonderful wonderful ideas. That were spawn that caught again shifting that
cost that conversation from go away away from having our anger at our
ourselves and our neighbors in towards the One Percent and said OK now I'm going to
actually get to know my neighbors and I know that here here and in Seattle there's
another great organization that was actually even doing some of that before the
Seattle solidarity network that I'm also quite quite inspired by so why
in every major city is displacement even
a thing anymore it doesn't make any sense it doesn't even make much sense in the
long term cat cap was the vision one of the main reasons is that. We've
shifted to
a primarily service space based economy so cities have to continually reinvent
themselves over and over again just to keep the lights on right just to keep the
tax rate just to make sure that the water mains get get repaid repaired because
there is no true grassroots economic development in almost any city and will
actually talk about one of the later that's actually starting to take
a few steps that way in
a very surprising surprising part so this means that pretend that every single last
member of the board or your city council rather keep using the term Board of
Supervisors at San Francisco term completely agreed with the tenants union were
maybe former members supporters and everything they would still have
a hard time saying no to some of the neighborhood destroying projects because truly
we've gotten to the point where we haven't built any Torm of alternative economic.
Economic base for communities so the only thing that we see is like let's tear it
down and rebuild it right all that's put this thing in the middle of your neighbor
that we know is going to generate gentrification we know it's going to generate
displacement because just like the movie Sophie's Choice where. A Holocaust
survivor was had to had to choose between which kid to send to the guest two to the
gas chambers cities or as you want housing or jobs do you want housing or drugs you
want community safety or do you want Community Preservation and these are false
choices we can actually build cities cities from from below. And like you
mentioned earlier you know naming the strategy I don't call it
a system but the strategy and of neoliberalism Omas every single last city in the
United States whether you're the shrinking Detroit or their growing
Seattle head has this remarkable shrinkage of regulations of
austerity and you know it privatizations of of the of the commons and these are the
things that set that set the stage for the displacement that we're all fighting
against. And I should also say that you know
you know oftentimes as Rich seems rhetorical to say that all issues are linked but
all of this displacement all this redevelopment takes in
a massive amount of surveillance and control so when when police murder
happens in in
a predominantly African-American community brown community and often times goes
along the spectrum of gentrification and of and of displacement as we saw in San
Francisco just a few
a few months ago or Alex yet though was murdered in his in his neighborhood by
police who thought that he had a gun it was actually a taser and he was a. He was
a security guard who was on his way to work who got into a little bit of
a disagreement with
a yuppie who called to call the cops on him and it cost him his life and it cost
him his life but as the great James Baldwin said one of my favorite authors of all
time if they come for you in the morning they're going to be back for me at night.
Right if they come for you in the morning they're going to be back for me at night
and it's that early evening now right so even though some of us would have thought
OK you know this issue may or may not of impact me that's OK it's coming for you
right in San Francisco we have teachers they can't even afford to be part of their
part of the communities that they serve so what do we do about it because yes
that's the most important part right it's one thing to reckon recognize the problem
so it's one thing to build our vocabularies but what do we do about it so let's
talk about some philosophical choices we can make and then we'll talk about some
program attic choices we can make one is just embrace the right to the city. The
rights of the city you know its roots come in some fancy fancy French philosopher
of unreal if ever and you know it was popularized by people like my friend harmony
Goldberg editor Mark who's had this idea that people who make this city grow
through their labor right through their work through their participation have the
right to live here right and right have the have the right to not only live here
but have but participate in it to have
a democratic voice however that six press in your city and actually have control
right actually have some autonomy actually have some community collective
self-determination over their city and when I say work you know that you earn this
right to the city for your work I mean that any time that you produce
a value for yourself or another human being you're working and value isn't just
money right although that's certainly
a big major part of it value is babysitting for your kid babysitting for somebody
else's kid. Value is what you know is watching out for the watching out for your
neighbors right for your elderly neighbors because one of the things that
displacement really goes after is survival networks the way that people simply get
every day ways that people survive every day by helping each other out through
mutual aid now in certain forms of organizing We think that survival
networks and no big deal right we have the correct ideas right we have the correct
line we have
a you know you know we have things work out we have our policies worked out. You
know but that's that's that's really no not what not what we're talking about we're
talking about looking at the ways that people survive that's positive in the here
and now and recognizing radicalizing them respecting them helping people take the
next step towards action but always remember always remembering that this fight for
the rights of the city is actually rooted in the strengths that are already there
sometimes right next to the nightmares right right next to the worst of
a city or neighborhood have is also is the is the rose growing out of the concrete
the great political philosopher parks occur to talk about the next
shift that we can make is is housing is
a human right which I think everybody in this room has already made that shift to
we all believe in in the idea that housing is
a human right thank you.
As we know you know most you know most city councils at least on the West Coast
would pass resolutions in
a minute saying that we believe that housing is human right every human being
should have one as long as they don't have to pay for it as long as they don't have
to challenge the privilege of developers to do what they wish right they would
probably vote to give all the land back to the Indians as long as they don't
actually have to do it right because in liberal cities like like seven Cisco in
Seattle they like non-binding resolutions but when we fight for housing as
a human right we also speak against those exceptions that people push and oh
somebody doesn't deserve housing because they didn't work hard enough they have too
many kids they were born on the wrong side of the border and. Finally we
have to decide what alternative urbanism looks like now I made sure that I didn't
get too prescriptive because. I want to I want to people to take some ideas and be
able to create their own ideas their own programs own action programs not saying
you know I'm not saw Linsky or anything like that. I don't do checklists I don't do
ten rules here you know here's what you should should do so much of respect I had
for that guy but I want to have some frameworks you guys fill in the blanks so
here's here's what alternative urbanism some of the tenets of it it could be it
reduces the cost of urban living by removing key areas
a social consumption from the marketplace right so social consumption things that
we all need to consume to survive transportation schools housing the more we take
the more that we that we take these things out of the marketplace and into the
Commons it means that we all have more time to actually get to know our neighbors
right we have more security more more political power because we're not working
sixty or seventy hours
a week right they have more security expand in redefining the Commons production
and ownership for public use over private profit I think that's pretty pretty
self-explanatory recognize the city even in its most to still be and form as having
the potential to generate new forms of equity modes of production and political
participation create opportunities for people to experiment with new social norms
with mutual aid and social solidarity replacing axis of competition and greed. And
it tempted Bill popular power and excluded communities as opposed to simply
building superior ways of providing social resources in the capital context so
those are some ideas I'm going to throw out you guys figure out whether they make
sense to your community or not develop your you know you use them apply them to
your own campaigns that are also that are already quiet. Quite beautiful and quite
quite moving and I would add and it's not in the book that I think that we should
actually talk about housing reparations right. Thank you that would not be
purely racial although But it would be very very racial in many many it many
aspects we see and I believe this happened in Seattle although I haven't been able
to research it but the urban renewal of the one nine hundred sixty S.
Or seventy's decimated the African-American community in. San Francisco it
decimated completely
a race Manila town off the map and in the type of system that we live now land
tenure homeownership things like that are the way that some families you know
improve their economic status over time so that's been taken away it needs to be
repaired right communities need to be repaired what that looks like I have
absolutely no idea but I don't think that we can operate under racialize cap
capitalism without reckoning with the past because the past influences what we see
see now and that does not mean that you know that means making the system pay for
what it did that doesn't mean why people writing
a check in the or anything like that that means making doing the being a part of
a political movement to make more for all of us right to make for more for every
color of the rainbow but not turning
a blind eye to what's what's what's happened happened happened before so I'm almost
done here. In San Francisco first of all nobody should take anything that I've said
. As gospel interrogated I've dedicated over twenty something years of my life
to the housing and in the city that's and the end result has been we are the most
expensive city in the United States right so by all means you know the movement
that I've been
a part of his largely failed right we've largely failed in the reason why I wanted
to take some of my organizers Nope no books and turn him into
a book and so it could be useful so people picking up the torch now could learn
from our mistakes and our victories one of our most beautiful victories that we've
had has been the growth of the Community Land Trust movement. In San Francisco one
of the proud co-founders I think the only co-founder that's still dumb enough to be
on the board I go to all these meetings. Over again but I'm really proud to be part
of the community. You know we started we started off in two thousand and four took
us at least five years to have our first victory but there's
a building in Chinatown all working class immigrant families and
a few seniors who are who actually were successful in not only defeating the
eviction that was both city college trying to demolish it and the private developer
trying to buy the rights to demolish it from the city City College it was
a very long battle and the communal interest working with Asian law caucus the
tennis them selves and China Town Community Development Center we helped defeat
that eviction and we turned it into
a cooperative right that's actually owned and run by the people there and it's hard
right I certainly believe in the in the politics of self management of autonomy and
self management those things are hard because people don't learn bad habits the
ways that we're we're conditioned but it's working and it's growing and until we
get to the point where the lot of these good ideas are actually becoming kind of
the I you know the Vanguard so to speak of our housing movement I think we're going
to completely you know have to really you know rebuild the wheel every five years
what's one will be undone and what's one I want to see it is the good and the
threat of
a good example the fifty five Columbus in San Francisco there are people who no
longer live in threat of of fiction and that's forever right they cooperate on
their building it's permanently affordable no one can speculate it no one can get
greedy it's an improvement over some of the really value and cooperative ideas that
were done in the one nine hundred thirty S.
But I think we can win I don't think. I think I think we can win. And we're going
to lose we're going to we're we're going to lose we're going to lose campaigns. You
know we're going to see neighbors leave and that's part that's that's part of the
path right but in every movement that happens in the housing movement in the
Movement for the right to the city I think we can win because cities like yours it
can be social justice laboratories we know that on the on the on the national level
we don't have to have the strength to influence public policy on
a national level right now we don't have that. You know some some people certainly
when compared to the alternative of George Bush had
a lot of hope for. A lot of hope for Obama that maybe some things would be pushed
back well we see that we only have ourselves to rely on we don't have Democrats we
don't have Republicans. As much as I'd love to see the Green Party get up and
running again we don't have green party and in fact effective fighting mode but we
have each other we have we have our direct action we have our community campaigns
but we have our cities where we can try things out so I'm going to end with
a short passage from the book cities simultaneously an effort really effortlessly
embrace both utopian and just open potentials most of them were born from human
caused ecological disasters the clear cutting
a forest the paving of rivers and creeks but today the solutions to climate change
are in part urban density can prevent sprawl and robust plan public transportation
is the best way to cleave drivers from private automobiles. Through zoning and red
lining the political economy has always been shaped by racism and white supremacy
but it's also in cities were oppressed people most often find each other demand
self-determination and forge coalition dour alienated architecture argues with
vibrant design cities offer of the most the worst the popular culture can conjure
up then give birth to beautiful rebel music like jazz hip hop and punk which in
turn become the mass culture of another person's decade displacement replaces all
of this radical potential with spectacle it is the change that kills off all other
positive changes but in the end. Even though capital in displacement
shapes our cities so too can resistance thank you very much thank you and I always
hear people saying that San Francisco and Seattle are experiencing really similar
housing crises and I'm wondering if that is something people say is it true and
what did what did the two cities have in common.
Thank you yeah I mean obviously you know San Francisco and Seattle are very very
similar in many it you know in many ways but the main one is that you know we both
have our economic inequality is largely not only largely driven by the by the tech
industry and the tech industry. You know when you think about
a lot if we were living in a more you know
a more humane system take industry should be the the the factories of today where
anybody I remember a friend of a friend of mine who comes from
a very working class background he's actually in the book he became
a tech worker by reading go back before you could download
a whole manuals and coding you know he was writing for
a band and reading reading tech manuals and he taught himself how to use computers
right anybody who has a willingness to work and willingness to learn
a few new skills should be able to take advantage of it but it's you know early in
San Francisco the tech industry even intervals is ninety six percent white right
ninety six percent right that's the most could be the most Jim Crow industry that
we have a problem is America says there's probably
a worse one out there somewhere but ninety six percent white ninety six percent
people that already came from from middle class backgrounds so economic economic
inequality certainly is what holds Sanford San Francisco and Seattle together
because when you have
a relatively small amount of people right being able to work the entire market
right and great waves of speculation and reinventing the city just prevent right
just for the small small group that second economic aid that's. That's
economic inequality which. You know definitely joins joins both cities.
So the service is good communal entrance has what we have to to anniversaries one
was of November nine hundred ninety nine when a bunch of us stormed out of
a mission and I displacement Coalition meeting and we weren't happy with the
solutions that were being proposed by our Congress by our dear friends because we
really felt like community ownership not just affordable housing as viable as it is
and not just rent control that we wanted the community. A community ownership
strategy so we went to
a bar I think it was like December one thousand nine hundred nine and got really
drunk and decided make
a land trust so good things and ironically the social Houser that I work for now
also came out of another bar so sometimes drinking is
a good thing. But we also have butted it into so in two
thousand and four in two thousand and four the Land Trust officially incorporated
it became
a legal entity that had had the legal right to to own land and. Absolutely
yet every single last last city. Even I even got an e-mail today from Flagstaff
which isn't really
a city right it's somewhere it's somewhere between town and city right it's not
where you think of like an urban area that's going to. That's going to suffer this
very quickly but even Flagstaff that we have going on because of people coming
coming in for the tourists who want to take advantage of that it's happening where
.
You know. They're home.
Right. So.
To play I'll try to be really brief on that one as it's a it's
a political stroke so the for the first volley that we had we found money that was
left over of the city's seismic stabilization fund the building was was likely to
fall down during the earthquake and we did
a campaign and we got the money the city just rolled out
a small sites acquisition fund that could basically do you know prior small size
that are in jeopardy of displacement and take it off the spec of the market but
that wasn't because the city halls or woke up and said we want to do something nice
for people it was because there was political struggle there was campaigns.
Campaigns to to focus on that and it was
a victory and. Luckily I can't go into the details because we just entered
a purchase agreement for two buildings that were just last month were in jeopardy
of of. All the tenants being displaced so it's an insider outsider Strat strategy
but it could never be done without outside game because the land trust one and been
able to walk up to
a landlord and say hey do you want to sell us this building right you know if we
hadn't already done done with our partners the campaign to win the small size
acquisition fund and if really awesome groups like in free San Francisco were given
these landlords absolute friggin hell going to their to their doorsteps and make
and making them rescind the evictions making them back up to the point where when I
get a I'll get rid of this and get rid of this at
a discount rate so never think that it that five recent years certainly we need
money and we need public investment to make these things happen but it is always
outside inside game we can never just become insiders and expect that even
a wonderful city council have no idea if you have
a good one or not is. You know it would do these things for us without you know
without the constant pushing the constant demand of what Chris is all that.
He saw. On the last
little. Right.
To say.
This all this last. Week.
Or so first I think that every We're going to is or should read Alinsky just
because it's been so foundational and influence everybody whether you are running
from it or you think it's the best thing in the world you should read it because
you know it was an appropriate model at the time in many ways right and Lindsay
also had
a very strong critique of authoritarian versions of of government now
I think that when you're doing organizing the first whether you consider yourself
to be
a political radical whatever that means to you or whether you're considered to be
going for reforms the first few steps
a good organizing weather or basically the same you knock on doors you talk to
people you find out what people want to write and you try to and you try to.
You try to illustrate that people can unite and win no matter what so that's that
that's that's uniform no matter what your ideology is. What's different is that
a radical organizer you know certainly is going to be you know
a good one at least is certainly going to be with you as you fight your landlord as
you fight for this short term gains that help help you survive but the ACA actually
talk about big about big questions right in
a way that's asking questions as dialogical right this says Why do you think this
is happening is
a capitalism is it racism probably both as we see often times when I call I call
sexism is
a hidden Specter and that in the housing crisis we talk about the structures and
those are in many organizations the structures that cause these things are you
can't we can't have those come we can't have those conversations and that's that's
bad because it means that we will put all this wonderful energy into winning stuff
and probably could quite win but when it comes down to actually getting rid of the
problem the Alinsky model stops stops quite short but then again there's all you
know I mean the. What it what I think that Alinsky was trying to do was trying to
challenge he actually chose two generations of leftists to become to try to become
relevant right listen to what actual people want listen listen listen to how
people describe the conditions of living and listen to their aspirations and I
think that's part while a. Well while I completely disagree with
a lot of the model of mainly not having to have that conversation in my book I even
talk a little bit about how we organize the back of the arts in Chicago in
a wonderful way and then turned out that many of the white people in that in that
neighborhood turn around and use those skills to reinforce segregation so that's
a part of the tradition you can just get rid of throw it in the trash but the part
where he says you know don't get caught up in just you know your own ideologies so
much that you can't listen to human beings and assess things I think that's quite
quite valuable.
Absolutely build this tenant tenants union one of the best things that you can do
you know is build this show up whenever you can and recruit you know ask your
friends you know if everybody in this room not tomorrow but over the over the over
the coming year you recruited ten people imagine what
a time you would have finding an appropriate space for next year right ten people
in those the next year each one ten more people that means you could take you could
take the summer off and not recruit anybody for two months right and. It really
does it really does come down that you know your numbers do count for something.
Yeah OK All right. So so Saul
Alinsky was a guy who organizes the nine hundred thirty S.
And forty's and he wrote
a book called rules radical another one called Revolution for radicals that became
the blueprint for many of their organizations following and he he emphasized the
you know creative conflict as an OR as an organizing tool and had to you know ten
rules you can. Find them all so the buses My dear friends addiction free San
Francisco so that they were going to go and blockade the buses and I said What are
you thinking you know. I thought that it was the stupidest idea that I had ever
heard of coming from some of the smartest people that I had ever had the honor of
working with. One is that it was indirect action right you know you don't know who
was getting on the bus right you know if they were just you know making
a working class wage or they're at the top you know top at the top of the chain I
had
a long list of reasons why it was bad right. And I was no go after you know go after
the head of Google go after their boards you know things like that and they did it
and I'm glad that they ignored me. What the VIX goes to show you that nobody is
ever too much of an expert right because. These these bus blockades completely
shifted the conversation around displacement it's ever school and nationally right
just the fact that you even know about it right. It helps shift shift shift the
conversation about what what are the impacts of tech
a little wary of doing too much tech hating right because I remember
a volunteer at the Coalition on Homelessness after the last tech bubble collapsed
and finding fighting my first for the first client that came in looking for housing
wanting you know who was
a former tech worker who was living out of the really expensive S.U.V.
So things go up and things go down and I would like to think that even tech workers
have the potential to think like workers one day right it's not going to happen any
any any any time soon for the majority of some you know some of them are quite you
know have that potential and are willing to work but it's not it's not happening in
mass so but it can you know complete it completely reframe the debate around the
impacts of that I would have loved it if the debate would
a little bit further around economic inequality because I believe that even if we
didn't have the text this of the Microsoft and Seattle and just about every
everybody with an app coming to San Francisco these days. We'd still have
displacement we'd still have gentrification would find
a different vehicle it might be
a slower moving vehicle will still have. That and so. Just thinking and you know
just thinking about this about the tech industry in tech workers but it had an
enormous an enormous impact and you know up close on that thanks for giving me the
segue you know one point that I'd like to make is that in the displacement in the
fight against this laser we have so many distractions so many distractions
is that the hipsters with their little funny things they do on their face with
their mustaches and their proclivities for the good donuts right and we we can
focus so much on this narrative that it's the hipsters it's the hipsters it's the
hipsters and if you look at hipsters right this is
a debate that goes back to the beatnik era right like
a fifty sixty or sixty odd odd year debate Norman Mailer wrote about it and what it
does is you know while many of these many of these individuals are quite annoying.
But they're not the people calling the shots they're not the people that are
signing the eviction order they're not the people that are financing your
grandmother's addiction right they're not holding capital and I think that you know
a far more potent model you know in this is might be heresy around hipsters and
everything first always go after they go after the big guys leave those guys alone
right but maybe we should organize them maybe we should organize the hipsters
because and this sounds as if this sounds ridiculous think think back I don't think
that you guys should do it right I think you guys sure were going to say your guy's
ing right but maybe there's you know me you know maybe there's
a space or race race traitors and maybe there's
a space for class traitors to take up this work I've seen it happen before. In the
one thousand nine hundred sixty is there is this group called the White Panther
Party the White Panther Party looked and said all these you know there's all these
a political hipsters there's all these hippies that aren't supporting black power
that aren't supporting the the fight against their peers tuning in and dropping out
and this is let's have
a total assault on culture using the rock music that they want to listen to and
bringing new ideas and bringing people. Bringing many people to
a great brand new understanding maybe that's what maybe we should be cutting the
other sides coalition down
a little bit maybe we should be hacking and other sites coalition maybe we should
think about reaching out to the trade trade unions because we always know that you
know we go down to City Hall or development thing you know the Trades Unions are
usually going to be not on your side in most cities maybe we should be thinking
about what alternative development is so they can get that they can get their jobs
through other means than destroying the neighborhoods that many of them come from.
Those are just some ideas I know you have many things to talk about I hope that's
all. Thank you. A friend of
mine was in Japan and somebody came in and tried to buy your place.
And then kick you out they have negotiate with the tenants and they have to pay
their. You know. What is the prospect of that happening here
so the prospect of any any anything positive positive happening on the national
picture here in the United States or even on the local level all depends on
organizing community organizing labor organizing and putting the rights of the city
and the human rights front and center in in these campaigns. In.
Most Western European countries. They have
a much higher standard for housing housing preservation they're still
gentrification they're still capital cities but generally there's much higher
levels of relocation rights tenant rights and other forms of co-operative housing
and social housing. And certainly in countries like Venezuela have
a long long way over the past past ten years towards getting closer to housing is
in direct directly investing in brand new affordable housing taking some of the
country's oil oil profits also see in Eastern Europe the former communist countries
where. There was privatized so quickly that you had over thirty thousand people
displaced in just
a short amount of time after they converge especially in countries like I've been
to and in Hungary so nobody. At this point in history has elevated housing to an
absolute human right but somewhere
a lot farther farther along with us and so. You know. Even
a little behind a few years ago there was
a special report from the UN I actually had
a special record holder who toured all of the United States talked to many
different organizations and even the real estate. Industry and really. Really
criticized the United States' approach to housing as approach as as opposed to you
know most other industrial countries.
Were. CONSIDERED. You know. People that
a. Lot of people you know because prime crisis you know
they're losing their houses. You know and that's all
a big scam. You know capitalists actually have
a culture right people into. Thinking
that they're going to have. Crashed. The market and then they go
back. So you ask. About we're you know workers stake in the
economy whether that be at the workplace or you know in in people's housing
situations and you know I think it's you know you're to preface I think it's really
interesting that in the United States many great advocacy and organizing
organizations are so split up and so siloed where they have organized one
organization fights for people's rights on the job they're the one who fights for
people's rights against landlords or for the human right of housing and you know
really shows kind of almost silly amount of special specialisation that we have has
as a movement I think getting to the point where we have put the idea of
a human right of housing more central means that trade unions need to pick up the
man mantle but also that workers need having sorry ten ten organizations also
need to take the labor question very seriously you know if you know if. For
no other reason is that it splits the other the other sides coalition I don't think
any any carpenter in the world wants to build
a building that they had their family could never afford to live in their
communities could never afford to live in or would put gentrification and
displacement pressures on the rest of the rest of the city or the surround
surrounding neighborhood quite to the contrary think that you know most rank and
file workers want to you know build socially useful buildings you know buildings
where you know people who are like them who can who you know who reflect their
communities can also also live and so it means backing up and not just for
different organ organizations and trade unions to not just meet at city hall over
fighting over some development but actually making
a long term plan for all. For alternative. Alternative development.
In cities that puts people's needs first before the profit of the profit motive.
You see that in Cleveland Ohio Cleveland Ohio was an amazing example
of where
a laundry warehouse was about ready to go out of business and the city actually
helped turn it into an owner run cooperative So not only is that
a good thing for the hundreds of families that get work through the cooperative but
it's also a good thing for for the politics of a city because of
a sudden every day people because they have income security you can look at new
development and analyze what they want and what they don't want outside of kind of
the hostage situation of urban development where you have to have housing or jobs
jobs or housing and that's you know that's
a that's very important so. And you know certainly you know certainly in
the house in the housing realm you know. We don't have doesn't have to be purely
for profit we can have massive amounts of. Housing that is not for profit in every
single city especially one was
a cooperative housing that in addition to providing the affordability and the
stability also makes ask you know the interesting thing about
a Community Land Trust or any form or cooperate of housing It also asked the
individual to take personal responsibility in their community to help manage the
the building to help the neighborhood of develop in a positive in
a positive way so it kind of completely short circuits the philosophical debates we
offer that often stifle this. You know how do you see this.
Collaborative how the. Act of
a good public good. Yeah to tear down the county Yeah and they're
privatized and. You know that's going to lead to all those people and their numbers
but you know there's collaborative housing you never hear about we need both I
don't think it's an either or public housing can be read can be reimagined
by and for the people who actually live live there it's been the the number
one best protection against homelessness despite all of the problems but.
San Francisco during the Hope Six program you saw the tenants organized around the
hope six crosses
a demolishing their buildings and rebuilding it their demands were very very simple
they wanted the process to be something that helped stabilize the community
buildings to be things that they could come back to that would get third kids into
good paying construction jobs it wasn't anything too fancy it was very better right
in butter but we saw
a massive missed opportunity in most parts of the United States to really really
rebuild public public housing from the from the ground up as an anti displacement
tool as an economic development tool basically as
a new deal for cities to put to really put people back to work unfortunately in
most cities and certainly the Clinton administration they just weren't weren't
interested in going down that route so cooperative housing is extremely important
you know cooperate cooperate of housing like I mentioned. When it's done when it's
done well when it's done in
a permanently affordable way can stop displacement can help take buildings that are
currently in jeopardy of going to market in putting them into
a different sector of the economy that is there to help the help the help the
community stays staying grow in place so we need both you know it's not it's
not an either or how do you see. Some kind of financing
if you actually create. Well you know I think it's it's all about
a matter of. Building community pressure for those kinds of reforms because I think
that you know policy tools like land banking and community land trusts are key to
making sure that the land that we live on is affordable in perpetuity right because
. That's the problem with development is that it's this speculation this quick turn
around profit where. You know someone who has the capital can just buy all the land
to displace a lot of people that are on it and that is a you know us
a story that runs throughout history right so these are big challenges but I think
that other cities have tackled it with. You know like land trusts and land
banking and kind of taking land out of the private market and holding them in
public hands and I think that that's
a good way to maintain permanent affordability for folks in terms of the political
prospects of that happening I mean I think that now is the time to start talking
about those things and I think that. You know looking at corporations looking at.
You know. You know the wealthy. For. You know
creating
a tax system that would support that kind of land reform is probably the way to go
go forward with that now what that means in terms of the city council what
direction they will go it's probably too soon to say this year.
Well Seattle I mean you know the Seattle has the homestead land trust and they do
great work and during the foreclosure crisis they were going out and buying up all
these properties that have been foreclosed on and were way below market that they
would have otherwise been in the expanded their pool of land that was held in this
trust and now there are you know low income to moderate income families living in
those buildings so I think Seattle's already doing it's just
a matter of bringing it to scale and I think that's the challenge yeah. Yeah you
got Thank you.